Critics reviews

As many writers have noted, the main flaw of this handsome film is that it works much too hard to be cinematic: rapid, jumpy editing and a needlessly mobile camera merely distract from dialogue and performances that need no embellishment. . . . Ultimately, some stylistic excesses and deep cuts to the script don’t stop the play from engrossing and shattering the viewer.

Handsomely mounted and well-acted by a stellar cast, but it’s one of those theatrical adaptations that has no reason to exist for any viewer who can recall a superior stage version of the same work.

Like so much of Chekhov's deceptively naturalistic work, The Seagull can be read (and probably was, and will be, in many a Comp. Lit. class) as just another bunch of unhappy Russians gassing on about how life has failed them. But how beautifully this top-drawer cast gases, in playwright Stephen Karam's crafty adaptation of a play that Chekhov insisted was a comedy.

The most impressive thing about this film of “The Seagull” is that every role has been ideally cast. Moss somehow manages to dominate the whole film and stay most in the memory in spite of limited footage, but Bening plays her last moment here extraordinarily well, and this closing scene with Arkadina generally gives actresses trouble.

One of the characteristics that makes Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull so timeless is its message about the friction between the avant-garde and the traditional. . . . Michael Mayer’s film adaptation, while certainly reverential to Chekhov’s classic, feels utterly conventional in today’s cinematic landscape.